ay Games gets gifts, iOS-Android multiplayer

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Published 17 Mar 2014

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is beefing up its gaming services with new features for Android iOS.

Game developers can now add cross-platform multiplayer for real-time turn-based games, so iOS Android users will have more opportunities to play together.

isn’t the only company to enable cross-platform multiplayer on mobile devices. Other developer solutions such as Scoreloop are also available, some games such as Zynga’s rds with Friends use Facebook to connect friends across Android iOS. may be hoping that its full suite of services, including achievements, leaderboards cloud saving, will help lure in more players.

It’s unclear, however, whether ay Games is seeing much developer adoption on iOS. Many games that support ‘s services on Android don’t do so on iOS, instead opting for Apple’s own Game Center iCloud services. Furthermore, doesn’t offer any way to find iOS games that support the company’s services.

To attract more developers, is adding more features including C++ tools to support achievements leaderboards, enhanced statistics in the ay Developer console.

For Android, will soon offer “game gifts,” allowing players to send in-app items to one another. ayers can send an item to anyone in their + circles, or can search for the player by name. However, ay still doesn’t allow users to send entire apps as gifts.

‘s also adding 18 new game categories in an effort to make game discovery a little easier.

hasn’t launched the new features for its game services just yet, but says they’ll be available in the “coming weeks.”